Large wall displays can be prohibitively expensive because the cost to manufacture display panels increases exponentially with display area. This cost increase arises from the increased complexity of large monolithic displays, the decreased yields associated with large displays (a greater number of components must be defect free for large displays), and increased shipping, delivery, and setup costs. Tiling smaller display panels to form larger multi-panel displays can help reduce many of the costs associated with large monolithic displays.
FIGS. 1A-1B illustrate how tiling multiple smaller, less expensive display panels 100 together can achieve a large multi-panel display 105 that can be used as a large wall display. The individual images displayed by each display panel 100 can constitute a sub-portion of the larger overall composite image collectively displayed by multi-panel display 105. Multi-panel display 105 can reduce costs, but visually it has a major drawback. Each display panel 100 includes its own backlight module and includes a bezel 110 around its periphery that houses pixel region 115 in which the display pixels are disposed. Manufacturers have recently reduced the thickness of bezel 110 considerably, to less than 2 mm, but even these thin bezels are very noticeable to the naked eye, meaning that they distract the viewer and otherwise detract from the overall visual experience.
Various other approaches for obtaining seamless displays include display lensing, blended projection, stackable display cubes, and LED tiles. Display lensing places a single contiguous lens in front of each display panel 100 to present a fused, borderless image in a particular “sweet spot.” However, the viewing angle is relative narrow and image distortion along continuous lines still occurs. Blended projection uses software stitching and mechanical mounting of traditional projection screens. Currently, blended projection uses relatively low cost hardware and is a good option for non-planar surfaces. However, there are significant physical constraints on usage and installation and requires regular maintenance and sophisticated calibration. Stackable display cubes are a rear projection technology. Each display cube is relatively deep and the seams between adjacent cubes are easily visible. LED tiles are arrays of discrete RGB light emitting diodes (“LED”). LED tiles can have virtually invisible seams because the seams run between pixels. However, LED tiles are expensive and have large pixel pitches (e.g., 2 to 4 mm) that result in low resolution images.